Nashville pedal taverns face off in court. Seriously.

Nashville has taken action to stop bars-on-wheels known as pedal taverns as well as low-speed vehicles that resemble golf carts from operating during peak traffic hours in the morning and early evening.
Joey Garrison / The Tennessean

Such is the argument sparking perhaps the most Nashville lawsuit ever, claiming Nashville Pedal Tavern LLC states a rival, Sprocket Tours, is illegally calling its own wheeled booze-vessel a "pedal tavern."

A federal lawsuit filed Thursday argues the slow-moving, people-toting bars are officially known as four-wheeled party bicycles. Nashville Pedal Tavern trademarked the phrases "pedal tavern" and "Nashville Pedal Tavern," and therefore no other company should be able to promote similar services using such terms, the lawsuit states.

However, Sprocket Tours — a company that operates similar slothful saloons they call "Sprocket Rockets" — advertises their company as "Nashville's #1 Party Bike Pedal Tavern," the lawsuit says.

By doing so, the company is using a term that it can't, argues Nashville Pedal Tavern.

"(Sprocket's) intentional use of a mark that is confusingly similar to Plaintiff’s PEDAL TAVERN® mark constitutes willful trademark infringement," states the lawsuit.

A Tennessean review of the Sprocket Rocket website Thursday showed the company billed itself as "Nashville’s #1 Peddle Tavern."

Nashville Pedal Tavern states in the lawsuit it has tried since 2014 to get Sprocket to stop using the terms, but to no avail. The company even suggested alternative language: Pedal carriages.

Nashville Pedal Tavern argues Sprocket is violating federal and state trademark and competition law. It wants a judge to force Sprocket to stop using the terminology, pay Nashville Pedal Tavern any profits it may have received through advertisements using those words and to pay three times the amount of any other monetary damages for "willful and intentional misconduct."

A message left at the office of Sprocket Rocket tours was not immediately returned Thursday. Nor were emails to Nashville Pedal Tavern.

There's no indication whether the battle between bachelorette-bearing mobile bar businesses will slog its way through the slow wheels of justice any faster than they meander past Nashville's honky tonks.